Frye's unbubbled ballots exceed Murphy's margin

San Diego Union-Tribune ^ | December 15, 2004 | Philip J LaVelle, Daniel J. Chacon

[newzjunkey]

More people voted in the San Diego mayor's race for write-in candidate Donna Frye than for Mayor Dick Murphy, according to a review yesterday of disputed ballots, but it would take court action for her to be declared the winner.

At the end of a full day of ballot examination, county elections workers ... had reviewed 4,854 ballots cast for Frye that were not included in the official results of the Nov. 2 election.

Those numbers alone, likely to rise as the ballot review continues today, would put Frye 2,746 votes above Murphy's official total.

The ballots were disqualified because voters who wrote in Frye's name did not fill in a corresponding bubble, a requirement of state election law...

After weeks of legal wrangling, Murphy was sworn in to a second term last Wednesday. The official tally put him 2,108 votes ahead of Frye... County Supervisor Ron Roberts placed third.

Frye said she was troubled that the bubble requirement was standing in the way of thousands of votes being officially counted.

"Let's face it, this is not a literacy test," Frye said in an interview. "This is an expression of the intention of the voter. I feel frustrated, and I feel that a lot of people have been disenfranchised on a technicality."...

Frye, who has until Jan. 7 to file a legal challenge, said she is undecided what action to take...

The vote review under way was requested by... The San Diego Union-Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and KPBS, KGTV and KNSD.

The Frye supporters are likely to ask the courts to declare her the winner, on their argument that the will of voters should trump what they call technical aspects of voting such as the bubble requirement...

[newzjunkey]

In a nutshell: more people wrote-in Frye's name than the margin of Murphy's "victory" in this year's San Diego Mayoral race. However, thousands of them didn't fill in the bubble when they write in Frye's name.

Frye is a Democrat backed by union money. New City Attorney Mike Aguirre is a Democrat.

Court cases have already occured over this race because the City Clerk violated the City Charter and allowed Frye as a write-in candidate in a run-off election. The 4th Circuit decided rights were lost because a challenge did not come before the election. Even still, a MAJORITY, not a plurality is required by the charter. That has been ignored and Murphy, who got 34% of "legal" votes was sworn in for a second term.

Clearly, this isn't over yet. So either we'll get a failed RINO mayor (backed by the County GOP) who lost about 2/3rd of the votes cast or we'll get a union-backed Democrat who stayed out of the Primary and leaped into the General about a week before absentee/early voting began.

[joltinjoe]

Does this mean that all the votes that did not have a write in name and no bubble filled in were really a vote for one of the two names on the ballot?

[skip_intro]

One problem in cities like San Diego is the huge student population. Student's are allowed to vote in the locale where they attend college, rather than at their actual home residence. This gives a tremendous advantage to left wing candidates.